Collage Friday::Trials and Thanksgiving

I haven’t had the best week, so in an effort at being grateful, I am writing up this week’s wrap-up.  Mostly what’s been wrong this week is my bad attitude and my exhaustion, all caused by a lack of quiet and what is often referred to as “down time” in my life.  My constant busy-ness has resulted in stress and burn-out (again! why do I let this happen over and over?), and I’ve got to figure out a way to balance my responsibilities.  While I’m pretty sure I’m not going to find an extra ten or twelve hours to add to the twenty-four I already get, I don’t know.  Maybe I can figure out something to let go.  (The obvious response here is blogging, I guess, but I consider writing cathartic, so bear with me. . . )

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1. Monday was chilly but rain-free (which is unusual lately), so we took off mid-morning to our favorite nature trail.  Here the girls are resting and enjoying their first glimpse from the trail of the Tennessee River.  We had a good time, even if climbing the huge hill back to the parking lot reminded me of just how out of shape I am.  I really, really, really want to inject more physical activity into our days, but most days I’m at a loss how to fit it all in.  (Do you detect a theme here?)  I’m glad that on Monday I chose the better thing.

2.  One thing that often gets left off my weekly wrap-up posts is the girls’ music lessons, but their practice actually helps make up the backbone of our days.  Here Louise is working on adding chords to a song she wrote lyrics for.  The girls usually practice in the mornings right after breakfast and chores, and while I’d love to tweak our schedule to push the practice to later in the day, the reality is that too often when it doesn’t happen first thing, it doesn’t happen at all.  Lulu was tickled to have assigned to her this week a song about a woodpecker.  Her delight, of course, was because of our backyard friend.  This week I’ve enjoyed hearing the strains of “How Great Thou Art,” one of Lulu’s assigned (and favorite!) pieces.   I’m also thankful that Steady Eddie took Louise to music on Tuesday night, which freed me up for number 3.  :-)

3.  On Tuesday night Lulu and I went to a kids’ book club meeting at one of our libraries.  The book up for discussion wasThe Invention of Hugo Cabret, and while I think Lulu liked it, I think she honestly would’ve rather been at Nana’s, which is the usual Tuesday evening activity.  She did get to play on the Scholastic website in the library’s computer lab which is always a treat, but other than that, I don’t think she was too impressed.  This really isn’t so much a reflection of the program as it was Lulu’s age (I think) and her bent.  Oh, and her love for spending time at Nana’s. 

4. On Wednesday I was intent on getting our stuff done, oblivious to the weather or anything else outside my home.  Then I read this post of Alice’s and her reference to an “unusually warm January day,” and I immediately stuck my head outside and changed our lunch plans to include a picnic on our new picnic table (a Christmas gift from my sweet brother-in-law).  We ate our PB & Js and goldfish, and then I read a chapter of Adam of the Road before we went in for an abbrieviated rest time.  The weather was glorious!

5.  After the girls had about 30 minutes of quiet time, the three of us went back outside while the DLM napped.  The girls ran around, picked flowers, and made a willow twig broom (inspired by Laura and Mary, of course) out of wild onions and a tree limb.  I read my Bible (Philippians 1 has been my meditation this week) and a novel for the Armchair Cybils.  This was a bright spot–reading outside while the girls ran around and enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine.  Lovely.

6.  That very same afternoon, we loaded up and headed for Lulu’s piano lesson, stopping at Sonic for happy hour (half-price drinks and slushes, for the uninitiated) on the way.  The girls got lemon-berry fresh fruit slushes, while I enjoyed my Dr. Pepper with the good Sonic ice.  :-)   Instead of going inside at piano lessons, Louise, the DLM, and I sat outside on a quilt I had brought along for just that purpose.  Louise and I played a game of Tens Memory while the DLM worried the cat.  I usually count on time during piano to work on something with Louise–reading or math.  Most days it works out, too. 

7.  Lulu and I are still working on geometry in RS C, and we’ve also hit the concept of fractions pretty hard this week.  I really like the way RS slowly introduces a concept and ties concepts together.  We’ve also been working toward memorizing multiplication facts, though in a low-key way.  I did pull out our CD One Hundred Sheep that we’ve had since I saw it recommended at Supratentorial.  It is a wonderful resource to cement skip counting/multiplication facts in a fun, silly (but also Biblical!) way.  It’s my favorite resource this week.

8.  Monday morning was a big day in the world of children’s literature–the ALA Youth Media Awards (i.e. Newbery, Caldecott, and others) was announced.  You can read my thoughts about the winners here.  Mostly I just wanted to note that Louise and I enjoyed watching them together.  Lulu was too busy reading to notice.  :-)

9.  Our paperwhites have bloomed!  A funny story to go along with that is the fact that when I first noticed their fragrance, I thought it was really. . . bad.  ;-)   The scent has grown on me, but at first I couldn’t figure out what it was for the life of me, and I thought I had some major cleaning to do!

All in all, really not a bad week, right?  Right!  The usual was more or less done, too–lots of reading (Lulu’s required book was The Minstrel in the Tower), some writing, some history (Frederick Barbarrossa and St. Francis this week), and Steady Eddie is discussing energy with the girls for Saturday Science.  (Yes, I just coined that title!)  Another high point of the week was that Louise read several pages from A Grain of Rice by Demi of her own volition in the van on the way to church on Wednesday night.  Maybe that made up for our losing the Young Cam Jansen book she had been reading for practice earlier in the week, right?

You know, the blessings are there if we look for them.  The biggest blessing this week was something that doesn’t relate much to school at all.  I took the girls to have their hair cut at the salon inside Wal-Mart on Thursday afternoon, and I accidentally left my little point-n-shoot camera on the counter when I paid.  I called this morning, hoping against hope that someone hadn’t picked it up and not turned it in, and–praise God!–the nice ladies at Cost Cutters still had it!  My heart really did swell up with thanksgiving at that news.  My cameras are an extension of my arm on most days, and my little one would’ve really been missed (not to mention expensive to replace).

I’ve just about decided to put my angst over Louise’s math lessons to rest by putting off anything formal until after we take our next week-long break, which is in two weeks.  I plan to get things together that week.  Until then, we’ll squeeze in math games and books when we can.  The fact that she added two two-digit numbers this week in her head, completely out of the blue, helps me to realize that she’s doing okay and some of this stuff gets picked up atmospherically, somehow.  :-) 

How was your week?

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Favorite Resource This Week

Posted in Education, Weekly Wrap-Up | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend by Ravi Zacharias

I’m going to do something here that I almost never do:  write up my (final?) thoughts about a book I haven’t finished.  I picked up Beyond Opinion:  Living the Faith We Defend, a collection of Christian apologetics articles edited by Ravi Zacharias, who also wrote a few of the articles himself, back before Christmas for this month’s Reading to Know Book Club.  It’s a long book with over 330 pages, and I have about 100 pages left til the end.   I started the book back around Christmas time, when Steady Eddie was off work and I had plenty of leisure time, since neither our homeschool nor the university where I work part time was in session.  While I have plenty of reading time now, considering how busy my life is, I find that my mind is not as capable of grasping complexities when it’s so overtaxed with small but necessary things, like where Louise’s reading book is hiding and how to teach Lulu geometry while simultaneously feeding the DLM oatmeal.  Anyway, I’ll probably always look back on this book with fondness when I remember taking it along with me on mine and Steady Eddie’s first overnight getaway sans children (or at least one child!) since the birth of the DLM.  (Does anybody else do this–associate books with places you visited while reading them, etc.?)

I have really enjoyed reading this book, and I count it and Nancy Leigh DeMoss’ Choosing Gratitude as the two things that helped me get myself back on track (by God’s grace) at the beginning of the year after a year of being run ragged.  Of course, it’s not really the books themselves, but the messages contained therein that have the power to reorient a person’s life, and that only because they contain the truth of God in a format that I find compelling.  The most memorable essay in Beyond Opinion for me is the one from section one entitled “Challenges from Youth” by Allison Thomas.  Maybe it shows how immature my mind is (quite possibly so!), but I identified very much with what Ms. Thomas has to say about Christian students who go off to college to find their faith mocked and challenged, and how such college students can be prepared.  I think the other thing that makes this particular article so compelling for me is the fact that I’m always thinking of how I can effectively communicate the truth of God to my children, even in the face of a world that scoffs at and challenges it.  While I know I fail daily in really living out my beliefs before my children, I think there has to be some power in just recognizing that I’m not living up to it, right?  I was also enlightened by reading about the challenges from other world religions, and I was heartened by the approach the apologists who wrote those particular articles suggest Christians take–that of finding the real heart hunger of people and offering Jesus as the only satisfaction for it. 

I’m not doing a very good job of being specific about what I’ve gotten out of this collection so far.  Honestly, I feel like the Professor could say the same thing about my education that he says about that of the Pevensie children at the beginning of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when he says, “Logic!  Why don’t they teach logic at these schools?”  Something has prevented me from exercising my brain to the point that I can even know how to follow some of the logical arguments presented in some of these articles, particularly the ones about philosophy.  Whew!  In all of my years of schooling, I’ve never learned this.  I do think it’s worthwhile, but I’m not sure this is the point in my life at which I have the time (or excess brain power!) to tackle it.  This is a book I should’ve read in small pieces, an article at a time, and made notes (maybe like my Reflections in Progress?) to help me process it.  Instead, I read it in a hurry and still didn’t finish it in time for the book club! 

 Will I finish it?  I hope so, eventually.  For now I think it’s time to move on to lighter fare.  I don’t think I do these works justice when I try to breeze through them, but right now I haven’t the amount of quiet time in my life to really grasp what these very erudite writers have to say.  On the positive side, this book has made me more aware of and interested in Ravi Zacharias’ ministry, and I’ve even been listening to his podcasts while I’m cooking or cleaning. 

Reading to Know - Book ClubCheck out this post at Reading to Know to read others’ thoughts about this book.

Posted in Adult Nonfiction, Books, In Step with the Spirit | Tagged | 4 Comments

A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery

I just closed the covers of A Tangled Web with a satisfied thump, and while I am not ready to tackle anything else by L.M. Montgomery right now, I am glad I re-read this one.  A Tangled Web capitalizes on the thing I like most about L.M. Montgomery’s style of writing–that she can create and weave together a community of people, with all their fits and foibles, all the while maintaining a cohesive storyline.  There really isn’t a main character in A Tangled Web, unless you count Aunt Becky Dark’s jug, the want of which has upended the lives of many a Dark and Penhallow.  Instead we have the stories of various members of the two clans and how their lives have played out thus far, and how the legendary jug affects them.  There are love triangles a-plenty in this story, with engagements made and broken, as well as the re-union of an estranged married couple who have lived separate and tortured lives for a decade.  There are silly men and cantankerous women, a neglected child and enough rhapsodizing about wonderful houses to make any prosaically-minded person to wonder, “What’s wrong with me that I don’t feel exactly this way about my house?  I mean, it’s nice, but sheesh!”  There are also lots and lots of four-letter words, mostly damns, to the point that it becomes a point of the book–that some of the men have to give up cursing so as to stay on the good side of the departed Aunt Becky who gave hints as to the habits of a person who would not get the jug when it is finally awarded to someone.  (I remember reading somewhere that Montgomery wrote this book for an adult audience, so maybe that explains her decision to use so many expletives.) 

 Anyway, it’s an enjoyable story.  I almost feel like this time around I’m reading the L.M. Montgomery books through a new set of more mature glasses.  Now I’m far more likely to grow weary of all the high-flown descriptions and passions described in any of her stories.  I think I can almost forgive all of that in a character like Anne, whose imagination really does get the better of her, but A Tangled Web is peopled almost entirely by adults, with the exception of the aforementioned neglected child, whose story really is almost too much, even by Montgomery‘s standards.  This is definitely the type of book that is read for entertainment and not for any particular message or meaning, unless you count the juxtaposition of the absurdity and the beauty of life as a meaning or message.  Once again, I’m reminded of Gilbert’s empassioned expression to Anne concerning the novel she was writing:  “Anne, nob’dy speaks that way!”  Ain’t it the truth.

One thing I’m picking up on more and more in the Montgomery novels I’ve re-read over the past few years is the atmosphere of darkness (sadness?  pessimism?)  that seems to pervade much of philosophical underpinnings of her works.  Maybe it’s just me, and really, it’s more of a feeling than anything, but there it is.  Carrie discusses Montgomery and theology a bit in this post, and while I’ve never entertained the delusion that any particular classic author’s works are “Christian” just because they’re moral or what-have-you, I think perhaps our differing thoughts on God might account for the uneasiness I feel at times when reading Montgomery‘s books.  (It’s not really uneasiness, but more of a, well, creepy feeling.)  I cannot believe I’m saying this about the author who used to be number one on my list of favorites! 

One more thing I wanted to note about A Tangled Web:  I usually prefer an older-looking cover for an old book; in other words, usually I’d prefer the cover linked above over the one pictured below for a book first published in 1931.  However, in the case of this book, I think the cover above makes it look to somber and serious.  The color cover below bespeaks the drama and sheer absurdity of the story better to me than the serious-appearing young lady above.  The one below also happens to be the copy I own (but have misplaced, which is sad to me because I’ve had an almost-complete Montgomery collection since I was a teen). 

 I’m really beginning to think my L.M. Montgomery Fan Club membership is going to be revoked if I don’t quit nit-picking!  ;-)    I really think I need to get back to reading the books with children as the main characters; I find much of what I’ve criticized about A Tangled Web much easier to take in a tale about people under the age of fifteen.  :-)

L. M. Montgomery Reading Challenge And so ends another month with the L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge.  Many thanks to Carrie for encouraging us to dust off our old copies of these beloved favorites and give them another look.  This is my fourth year to participate in the challenge, so I’m building up a nice little collection of reviews and other thoughts I’ve shared here, if anyone is interested in even more waffling on my part about L.M. Montgomery and my devotion to her ;-) .  (Read the honeymoon post if you’ve any doubt as to where I really stand.)

Jane of Lantern Hill review

The Blue Castle review

Pat of Silver Bush review

Mistress Pat review

 Magic for Marigold review

Kilmeny of the Orchard review

PEI Reminscences, a post in which I share pictures and memories of mine and Steady Eddie’s honeymoon on the Island

L.M. Montgomery Meanderings, a post in which I reminisce about how I became such a fan

 

Posted in Adult Fiction, Books, L.M. Montgomery Challenge, Vintage Finds Fridays, Young Adult Fiction | 5 Comments

This Week in Books


Lulu is obviously still on her Boxcar Children kick, although she did read one Nancy Drew mystery before deciding Nancy is a tad too suspenseful for her yet.  Four in-progress books on the stack:  Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray;  Sebastian Bach:  The Boy from Thuringia by Opal Wheeler and Sybil Deucher; Castle by David Macauley; and most notably, One Grain of Rice by Demi, which Louise brought with her in the van on the way to church Wednesday night and proceeded to read aloud the first seven pages or so of to me and Steady Eddie of her own volition.  I think we’re turning a corner!  :-)

Missing from the stack:  Beyond Opinion, which I’ve been carrying around (and misplacing!) for a month now, and Darth Paper Strikes Back by Tom Angleberger, a juvenile pick I’m reading for the Armchair Cybils Challenge.

 

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Read Aloud Thursday–music edition


This RAT post isn’t so much about books about music in a completely straightforward way, but there’s definitely a subtle theme going on.  Enjoy!

I picked The Really Awful Musicians by John Manders up out the new books bin at our of our libraries thinking it looked like fun, and I was right.  What I didn’t anticipate is how nicely this one would dovetail with our history studies!  Yes, that’s right, this comical-looking picture book is actually based on something that really happened.  Well, sort of.  The story itself is somewhat fantastical, with a talking horse and some hyperbole, but the backstory is there.  The picture book bit is the story of Piffaro, a young pipe and drum player, who flees his home when the king outlaws all music because it’s so bad (as in poorly played, not morally deficient).  The musicians play well individually, but together, they aren’t . . . together.  In a fit of exasperation, the king decrees that all musicians who stick around and are caught will be fed to the crocodiles living in the castle moat!  As Piffaro runs for his life, he collects several other musicians:  a contrabass player, a harpist, a mandolin player, and a sackbut player.  The format of the book makes it a fun one to read and share, and Manders‘ illustrations are cartoonish (you can see examples here) and match the story well.  Hands down my children’s favorite part (including the DLM!) is the extremely entertaining repeated inclusion of the sounds the various instruments make.  My kids’ favorites are pootpoot, pootpootpoot (the sound of the flute) and deedlediddledoodlediddledeedledeedlediddledoodle (the sound of the mandolin).  The fact that the onomatopoeic text curls, marches, and floats across the page is icing on the cake.  Of course, the musicians finally get it together, thanks to Piffaro’s horse, Charlemagne. (Ah, there’s the history hint!)  I won’t give anything away, but if you have history or music lovers, I think this one will be a hit.  My only complaint is that Charlemagne’s solution might’ve been explained/illustrated a little more thoroughly, but after all, this is a picture book, not a history treatise, and there is a one-page Author’s Note that fills in some of the spaces.  This one’s fun.  (Clarion, 2011)


First and foremost, Ella’s Big Chance is a Cinderella story, as its subtitle indicates.  The fact that this is A Jazz-Age Cinderella means that the illustrations (read:  the costumes) are beautiful, which is a given since Shirley Hughes is both the author and illustrator.  This story has Ella Cinders working with her father in “a little dress shop in a quiet but elegant part of town.”  Ella is happy in her life, learning to sew under her father’s expert tutelage and enjoying her friendship with Buttons, their doorman/deliverman.  Of course, pretty soon Mr. Cinders acquires a new wife, thereby giving Ella a stepmother and two tall, thin, pinch-nosed stepsisters.  The story goes along predictably, with the stepsisters and stepmother treating Ella poorly and eventually being invited to a grand ball given by a duchess in honor of her son, the Duke of Arc.  Enter a fairy godmother with a magical umbrella, and Ella’s off to the ball, too.  However, the story takes an expected-but-delightful turn when Ella eventually turns down the duke’s proposal to be with the man she loves.  My girls, whom I’m learning aren’t too young to understand the dreaminess of romance (with little-to-no premature exposure!), practically swooned at this.  It’s a nice twist on the let’s-go-be-a-princess theme that actually fits with the historical thrust of the story, too.  The illustrations are gorgeous, with saturated jewel tones and lots of emotion and atmosphere.  One thing I particularly appreciate is that Ella is depicted as being shorter and plumper than her stepsisters–she’s no Disney Cinderella with miniscule waist.   Highly Recommended! (Simon & Schuster, 2003)

Ella’s Big Chance won the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2003, the British equivalent of the Caldecott Medal, so I’m linking this post up to the 2012 Award Winning Books Challenge at Gathering Books

Snow isn’t something we get much of around here (except last year!), so maybe that explains my affinity for snow-themed picture books.  Snow Music by Lynne Rae Perkins took me by surprise. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but this book is delightful!  It’s not so much a story (which means we usually won’t like the book very much, actually) as it is an observation of the sounds one might hear when the world is covered in white.  The first page is covered in collaged-together blue, purple, and green pebble shapes with the word peth on each one in white.  In the middle of the page are the words “Everyone whisper:”.  Let me tell you, that is a fun way to set the stage for this auditory experience!  What follows is a quiet romp through a snowy world in which one little boy’s indoor dog has escaped.  As we search for the dog, we see a deer, a squirrel, children, a bird, etc., and we observe what they experience in the snow.  The squirrel, for example, is thinking this:

I think–

I think

I left it–

I think

I left it

here–

somewhere. . .

I think.

I think I–

I know

I left

it here. . .

No, wait–

The text is not arranged linearly like it is above, but rather it is on a field of white snow in an erratic, skittering formation, much like a squirrel might make across the snow.  The girls knew immediately what the squirrel was looking for.  Do you?  Really, I could go on about the quiet auditory and visual experience that is Snow Music, but I’ll just stop with a Highly Recommended.   (Greenwillow Books, 2003)

I’ve actually reviewed quite a few snow-themed picture books here at Hope Is the Word.  Here’s a list with links:

 I don’t know how much snow we’re predicted to get this winter; reading great books like these may be the only way we get to experience the white stuff this year.  :-)



Posted in Award Book, Books, Education, Picture Books, Read Aloud Thursday | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

January 2012 Nightstand

What's On Your NightstandI’ve turned over a new leaf yet again and am determined to remember to participate in What’s on Your Nighstand? every fourth Tuesday of the month.  My last Nightstand post was way back in October, but rather than rehash everything I’ve read since then, I’m going to start fresh with what I’ve read since we hung the new calendars.  Ready?

Books read in January 2012 (linked to my reviews):

I feel like I’ve read a lot more than that. Of course, I read a lot to my children, so there is that.  Plus, that last book up there is not a light read.  I started it around Christmas and I’ve more-or-less made steady progress in it each week, but it requires a lot of attention and thought.

I think the nonfiction titles win out this month; both Choosing Gratitude and Beyond Opinion have provided just the background I needed to start the new year.  I ended 2011 feeling pretty ragged and worn out, and just reading about thankfulness and its importance to the Christian and a huge book chock-full of compelling evidences for Christianity (and why it matters and what to do about it) have given me a spiritual boost.  I’m thankful for both of these books and God’s timing in bringing them into my life, and I give them both a Highly Recommended.

 I’ve been reading lots and lots of picture books to my girls and the DLM (which gives me great joy even to note!), and our current chapter book read-aloud is the Newbery Medal-winning classic, Adam of the Road.  I hope to post a review for Read Aloud Thursday in the next few weeks.  If you’re interested in a peek into some of the things we’ve enjoyed lately, check out my This Week in Books posts, as well as Nonfiction Monday, Read Aloud Thursday, and Poetry Friday.

Of course, uppermost in my mind have been the Armchair Cybils, and I hope to get to at least two more novels from the shortlists before the winners are announced on Valentine’s Day.  I have these two books waiting in the wings:


The other things on my plate for February are a challenge and a book club.  First, there’s Barbara’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge at Stray Thoughts, for which I hope to read The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure and Let the Hurricane Roar by Rose Wilder Lane.  Both of these are only tangentially related to LIW, so I guess I’m approaching the challenge from more of an “inspired by” perspective.  I’d also like to read Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder:  The Woman Behind the Legend which Janet reviewed here, but I’m not sure I’ll have enough time for all three.  The Little House on the Prairie books have provided much of the background for my girls’ early years (as they did mine), so this is a author and topic that really interest me. 

Second, I would like to read February’s book for the Reading to Know Book Club, Running Away to Home by Jennifer Wilson.  This book was selected by Carrie at with all that I’ve been given, and it sounds like a good one.

Of course, I still have Lit! on my TBR stack, and after Carrie’s exuberance about it ;-) , I really, really want to read it, too. 

And, in case all of that isn’t enough, the ALA Youth Media Awards were announced yesterday.  I can’t wait to get my hands on some of them!

So many books, so little time:  a theme song of my life.  What a great “problem” to have!

For more Nighstand posts, check out 5 Minutes for Books.

Posted in Books, What's on Your Nightstand? | 14 Comments

ALA Youth Media Awards–60 (ish), Amy–6 (ish)

After a night of broken sleep, punctuated by severe weather alerts that rival air raid sirens in their ability to induce panic in us shell-shocked Alabamians, I got up this morning to watch the ALA Youth Media Awards presentation live via the internet.  I always mean to do this but always also manage to let it slip by unnoticed until I read the re-hash on someone’s blog.  It was nice to have something to look forward to this morning after a rough night, though.

I’m usually surprised at how few of the award winning books I’ve read.  A quickly counted sixty some-odd winners, not including the many books of the authors or illustrators who won a lifetime achievement type award.  I think I’ve read five or so of them.  Here are the ones I’ve read, linked to my reviews when possible:

Caldecott MedalA Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka–I “read” this one but never reviewed it because I have such a hard time reviewing wordless picture books.  I really, really need to bone up on what makes illustrations great, both because I’m interested in it and because it would make my book reviews much better!

Caldecott honorMe. . . Jane by Patrick McDonnell

Schneider Family Book Award (middle school):  Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

Sibert AwardBalloons over Broadway by Melissa Sweet–I loved this one and even predicted it to be a Caldecott contender.  I’m so glad it won something!

Sibert honor:  Drawing from Memory by Allen Say, a book I haven’t read all of yet (seems I misplaced it in the middle of reading it). 

Theodore Seuss Geisel AwardI Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

Lulu and I are even; she hasn’t read Wonderstruck, but she did read Underground:  Finding the Light to Freedom by Shane W. Evans, which won the Coretta Scott King illustrator award.

These are the new-to-me winners I’m most interested in reading.  The designation is below the book cover.

(Newbery honor)

(Alex Award, though I first read of this book on Mindy Withrow’s blog)

(Sibert honor book)

 

(Theodore Seuss Geisel Award)

 

(Both Printz and Morris Awards!)

 

(YALSA Award)


(both YALSA honors)

(Susan Cooper won the Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults, and seeing as I haven’t read any of her books, I think I’ll start with this one.)

Anyone want to chat about the winners and losers?  You can see them all here, and for a fun take on one librarian’s opinion, check out The Lemme Library’s Bizarro Newbery Awards 2012. 

Posted in Award Book, Best Books, Bookish Thoughts, Books, Caldecott Award, Coretta Scott King Award, Nature, Newbery Award, Pura Belpre Award | 11 Comments

Ben Franklin: His Wit and Wisdom from A to Z by Alan Schroeder

History books are usually met with enthusiasm here at the House of Hope.  Alphabet books, however, are not.  In Ben Franklin:  His Wit and Wisdom from A to Z, Alan Schroeder has written a nonfiction picture book that combines history (and and biography!) into an A to Z format that even my alphabet-dissing girls enjoy.

Ben Franklin:  His Wit and Wisdom from A to Z is set up, as one might expect, so that topics that relate to Ben Franklin are arranged alphabetically.  For example, the letter A is for Almanac, Abiah (Franklin’s mother), Apprentice, and Armonica (a musical instrument invented by Franklin).  Each topic is explained with what I would consider a fair amount of detail; for example, the short explanation of apprentice states that Ben Franklin worked as one under his brother, but they didn’t get along.  Most of the topics include more information than that, but I think it helps flesh Ben Franklin out a little more to know that even as a young man (aged 12 when he was first apprenticed), he obviously had his own opinions and wasn’t afraid to share them.  Later in the book we learn that Franklin loved chess and would sometimes get so involved in a game he’d stay up all night to finish it.  Also included is the little tidbit that Franklin suffered from gout which made it difficult for him to be mobile.  These and dozens of more little snippets of Franklin’s life give us a picture of the man, as well as his impact on history and what life was like in colonial America.  Sprinkled throughout the text are little rectangular banners and signs containing Franklin’s famous aphorisms that further serve to illuminate his personality and impact.  John O’Brien‘s watercolor-and-ink illustrations make an already excellent book that much better.  His attention to detail is superb, with each page brimming over with both large and small drawings.  (The small drawings, many of which illustrated the aphorisms, are my favorite!)  This is a book to pore over.  My girls and I read this one in one sitting, although I think ideally it might best be spread out over hours or days.  It really is jam-packed with interesting an humorous information.  It is a book that can be enjoyed by almost anyone, from early elementary-aged through adult.  Highly Recommended!  (Holiday House, 2011)

Reviews elsewhere:

 This week’s Nonfiction Monday round-up is at Shelf EmployedThis book was nominated in the picture nonfiction category for the Cybils, so I’m also including it in my own Armchair Cybils challenge.  Like many, many other worthy titles, this one didn’t make the shortlist, but it’s too good to miss!

Posted in Armchair Cybils, Books, Cybils, Juvenile Nonfiction, Nonfiction Monday, Picture Books | 4 Comments

Collage Friday::the bookish, social week

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1. & 2. Steady Eddie was off work on Monday for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so we headed north to Tennessee for a field trip/family outing.   (Isn’t it great that it can be BOTH?!?)  We went to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in downtown Nashville.  We all had a great time in the Martin ArtQuest Gallery, particularly our girl who is quite the little artist.  One of the biggest bonuses for me personally as a homeschooling mother has been the awakening of my own interest in art, and I want to be intentional about nurturing it in my children.  It’s something that still gets pushed off the plate when the plate gets too full, but I want to remember to fight for it.  We also walked through the Divine Light exhibit, which is a traveling collection of North Renaissance art from Bob Jones University.  This was a little early for our history studies, but we’ll take an experience like this when we can get it!  We give the Frist a Highly Recommended!

3.  One of the highlights this week for us was getting to meet Stephanie from Simple Things and her munchkins on Monday after we left the Frist!  (That’s some of them up there, playing in the play area at Chick-Fil-A.)  We’ve tried to meet up on several of our trips to Nashville, and we finally got it all lined up this week.  Our girls hit it off (like I knew they would!), and my only two regrets are that Stephanie had to leave the napping little man at home and that we don’t live closer to each other.  We could definitely be scrapbooking/home educating buddies! She’s the first of my bloggy buddies I’ve met in real life, and while I am taller than she expected me to be ;-) , she lived up to my expectations in every way and I count her a real friend.  :-)

4.  Lulu continues to make forays in the world of geometry in RS C.  This week we tackled lessons 69-71, and while we’ve had a few melt-downs (both she and I!) over it, she still maintains that math is her favorite subject.  Learning is hard work sometimes, isn’t it?  Honestly, I haven’t thought this much about geometry since I was a ninth grader struggling through proofs in my high school geometry class.  This is stretching both of us, and it feels good.  Lulu is also actively putting multiplication facts into her brain, mostly through thoughtful review and quizzes.  We also managed to sneak in a few math games this week that focus on subtraction.  I love that we can play a card game in place of a worksheet.  It’s more fun for everybody!

I’m still slacking on Louise’s math, although we did play a game or two this week.   I think I should just go ahead and start her formal first grade curriculum, although to be honest, I’m not sure where I can fit another time-consuming math lesson into our day the way it’s currently set-up.  I think the piano practice is going to have to be pushed to the afternoon.  :-)   (Incidentally, “How Great Thou Art” is Lulu’s current favorite piano piece, so we’ve been humming and singing it a lot around here.)

5.  We’ve read a lot this week.  Louise and I are working on our library’s winter reading program.  We have to read 50 books by the end of February, so This Week in Books, our stack is really, really tall.  Louise and I did a shared reading of Inspector Hopper, so she added another title to her kindergarten book list.

6. Lulu read a lot of books this week, including two required suggested (!) titles:  Homer Price by Robert McCloskey (yes, that one) and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.  (You can see what else she read here.)  We’re planning for her to participate in a student book club next week at the library, and Hugo Cabret is the book up for discussion. 

Louise is buzzing through OPGTTR, completing lessons 113-115 this week.  This week was the fun little activity in which she had tape cards with phrases on them to various appropriate items.  Most of the phrases include the pesky words could, would, or should.  Louise thinks Hugo Cabret looks particularly interesting, especially the illustrations.  :-)

7.   We had to run an errand on Thursday (or walk, literally, since we walked up the road to do it), so we spent a little bit of very chilly time outside running around.  I’m having a hard time finding the time in our schedule to do this.  How do you fit in focused physical activity, especially if your schedule is affected by naptime?

8.  Steady Eddie took the lead and did science with the girls this week, mostly because I just plain old ran out of time.  Thursday night was all about magnets at our house, and the girls had a blast figuring out what the magnets would “stick” to and predicting why. 
My favorite resource this week is Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding, our science curriculum.  I really hesitate to call it a curriculum because it’s really just a book, an approach to teaching science, with lots of content in the book for the parent to digest and teach through conversation and investigation.  It’s NOT an open-and-go curriculum, but it really gets at the heart of instruction, and it’s the closest thing I’ve found in a science curriculum to what I envision for the younger years.  It, coupled with appropriate picture nonfiction, has been a perfect fit for us.  I love it!  (I bought the Kindle version originally, but I wouldn’t recommend it.  There’s a flowchart of lessons at the beginning of the book, and to use it well, you need to be able to flip back and forth to the chart.  I found it hard to do on the Kindle and ended up buying the book, too.)

9.  See that little fellow up there?  He is BUSY.  He loves to sweep and hold the dustpan, so in an effort to finish Lulu’s math lesson, I let him.  :-)   (This actually translates to I let him do almost anything he wants to do just so we can finish a math lesson.)  He sure is cute, though.  :-)   He is talking up a storm and making our days both hectic and delightful. 

The pictures, of course, don’t show the mundane things we do most days:  one more writing lesson, one more spelling lesson, one more grammar lessons, another rousing rendition of our hymn, “Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart,” etc.  I’m still working on flexibility, so I really appreciated and identified with what Alice has to say in her Our Week in Books post.  This week’s history found us in the Middle Ages, and we read several books about knights (which I hope to highlight in an upcoming Read Aloud Thursday post), plus lots of discussion and a few notebooking pages.  Lulu’s copywork, narration, and dictation for Writing With Ease was from “The Pied Piper of Hamlin” this week, and she was mesmerized by the poem.  She also wrote a letter to her mamaw this week, using predicate adjectives to describe Mamaw’s cat. 

Louise’s kindergarten is still made up mostly of play, free time, art, and lots of stories, plus listening in on whatever Lulu is learning in science, history (and everything else).  A reading lesson, reading aloud with me, some kind of math (see above :-) ), and occasionally some handwriting practice (though she does a lot of that on her own with her drawings) covers everything I put on her daily assignment list.  I feel good about the solid foundation in the basics (as well as the time to let her imagination soar!) she’s getting.

For Fun Friday today we read a little more in our Bach biography and listened to some Bach compositions for composer study.  Then we went to the library for baby storytime and for the girls to restock.  We had lunch at the newly-opened library cafe, where we ran into some friends.  From there we went to the new play area at one of the local McDonald’s for a meet-up for local homeschoolers.  The DLM was done after about forty-five minutes there, but I did manage to have some good conversation with one of the moms about the prospect of a new Classical Conversations group starting locally.  We came home to rest time, and then tea time with a couple of great picture books and some fun math card games to round out the day. 

I’ve enjoyed reading a few thought-provoking articles here and there this week, so I thought I’d share them here:

How was your week?

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Favorite Resource This Week

 

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This Week in Books


This seems like an unusually large stack, even for us.  :-)   The only in-progress books in the pile are my two, Beyond Opinion and A Tangled Web, and our current chapter book read aloud, Adam of the Road.  Most of these Lulu read alone, but the number of books I’m reading aloud to Louise is steadily increasing, as is the ease with which she reads her own.  (Hooray!)  Not included here are the books we’ve read to the DLM.  Maybe one day I’ll write up some of his picks.  :-)

**Not long after I finished up this post, I noticed a couple of books in the floor where Lulu loves to read by the space heater in the school room.  Therefore, I know that stack up there is short at least two books, one of which is the Troll Illustrated Classics version of Hans Brinker.  I guess she couldn’t resist reading her not-so-favorite parts, too.

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